Righto. Bought a new turntable, the Sherwood PM-9805, $199 from the JB HiFi online store -- $250 less than the list price on the Sherwood NZ website, $100 less than it was instore at the local JB and about $60 cheaper than on the Australian JB online store. No built-in USB recording, but the turntables with that seemed crappier and more expensive.

That looks like a nice turntable - this may be a silly question, but have you checked your amp has a "ground" connector for the turntable (I'm assuming it has, if you've already checked that it's got a phono input).

The USB-direct turntables I've seen invariably look a bit tinny and plastic, and I have no idea whether you can swap their headshells or styluses for anything decent - that's always put me off them. I really really want one of these but they're about $500 and never on special. I'll have to live with my 30 year old Sansui for a bit longer :(

Going way upstream to the discussion on download limits and large game files, Internode here in Oz act as a mirror for Steam (and other) game content, and it doesn't come off your download quota. I've only got a 30GB plan, and I've never exceeded it. It's certainly in their interests for you to download multiplayer-type games so that you can get your nice fat plan to play them. They also stream various internet radio offerings for free.

I'm a bit surprised that ISPs like Orcon haven't got with that kind of programme yet - I have to say that it's going to be one of the slight annoyances about returning home to NZ.

As for purchasing music, I'm one of those people whose CD purchases have increased mightily since being able to download samples. I just wish there were more than just the iTunes monopoly (since I am not an Apple fan, and nor do I think we should have to obtain horrible-on-Windows clunky software for the sole purpose of purchasing/playing music) for buying subscriptions to the various labels' offerings - I'm not going to sign up one-by-one to Sony Music, EMI, Universal, etc.

I love Amplifier for what they do for NZ offerings, and think that's a model that could stand to be deployed more widely. Especially if you can re-download your subscriptions on demand (-ish - I'd certainly understand if there were limits to how frequently you can download previously-purchased music over a specified time period).

I love Amplifier for what they do for NZ offerings, and think that's a model that could stand to be deployed more widely.

Word up. Love what Amplifier do and a key message is their interest in and devotion to NZ music. Their d/l system is actually really basic, they just leave it up to us to be adults and grab the music. All my NZ music for the last half decade or so has been from those folks.

Oh wow. I LOVE this thread. I just watched the video for James Reyne's 'Motor's Too Fast.' What a lift! I knew the song well enough, but the video is stone cold brilliant... While it's ostensibly a bog-standard entry in the Corey Hart 'Sunglasses At Night' oeuvre (enigmatic women, immaculate yet somewhat over-ambitious hair, people running for no readily apparent reason) it turns into something truly excellent near the end. Initially Reyne spends all his screen time looking like he's got to go tell a mother of four her husband is dead the moment the director calls "cut." But they must have been using marginal one-step-above-the-blooper-reel footage or something, because when Reyne is standing in the swimming pool trying to look all serious-like, just before they cut away, you can see him start to smirk. Or when one of the enigmatic women kisses him on the neck, and his Seventh Seal grimace starts to dissolve into laughter. As if to say, "It is 1987, and Men In Suits still run the music industry, and they seemed to think this muscle shirt was a good idea. Trust me, I think this is as ridiculous as you do..." Just that tiny glimpse behind the otherwise po-faced exterior was enough of a humanising touch to make the whole enterprise awesome. It went from cloying nonsense to an episode of Yacht Rock.

Who knows. Maybe this is how it was done before the internet. Maybe artists had to send coded messages embedded in their own goddamn work. "I'm in here. I'm OK, but I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. Send help."

Oops. I actually came in here to post some Australian music videos. Here are two of my favourites. One from the actual, sun-blasted Australia where everything is poisonous... Venom P. Stinger's classic "Walking About"

And one from the more mythic Australia of Dave Graney. Somehow, this song seems to capture something fundamental about Australia for me. Although I haven't the faintest idea why.

Been trying for two days now to read Selwyn Manning's story on Scoop about Key's dissing of Jon Stephenson. I just cant get that page to load which seems odd, everything else loads. Just not that page. Can someone who can open it put a link here, please.

Nice. Got mine for nothing, although I had to manufacture a counter weight, which I used for 15 years before replacing the whole tone arm for $265. Glass plate Planar 2. Manual as hell, but love it's sound. Have been a bit of a tin-arse with stereo gear. Bought a stereo cabinet once for $45 off Trademe and it came with Bose 201 Series II speakers. Think they were made in 1987, but sound perfectly fine to me.